Insect Drones 'Spotted' on U.S. Streets (Updated)

Share

Insect Drones 'Spotted' on U.S. Streets (Updated)

Sightings of Elvis robotic-looking insects – combined with reports that the Pentagon is working on cyborg insects – is prompting people to speculate that the government has perhaps already deployed this super-cool technology. As the Washington Post reports in an article that truly made my day:

* "I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects." *

*Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. *

*"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' " *

*That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. *

Of course, as the article notes, no agency admits to actually deploying Elvis insect bugs, but hey, why would they?

a

Update:

I was incredibly remiss – as one commenter pointed out – in not linking to David Hambling's excellent post on beamed power for Dragonfly spies (where he also discusses a reported sightings of what one commenter thought might be a robo-critter). David pointed out that the idea wasn't totally far-fetched. The biggest limitation for these types of drones is power. He wrote: "Beamed power micro UAVs would have obvious limitations – they're not going to be flying hundreds of miles away over enemy territory. But for covert surveillance in the domestic arena, they might be just the thing. I have no idea whether there are any dragonfly spies out there yet; but if there aren't now, there soon will be."

Do I think that dragonflies are already being used in the United States? Not likely. Why? First, because I've seen a lot of real dragonflies. They are beautiful and I love them. And yes, they sometimes look robotic – that's just the bizarre, wonderful, cool thing about Dragonflies. Second, UAVs crash. That's just the nature of UAV technology. So my guess is that if the government was really using cyberbugs to spy, one of them would have crashed by now and the cat would be out of the proverbial bag.